The OPTIM Update

Bogdan Cristei

Deep conversations with the founders, investors, and operators building real-world AI - robotics, automation, and industrial systems. Past the headlines, into how these technologies are really built, deployed, and scaled. Hosted by Bogdan Cristei, venture partner and former systems engineer.

Episodes

  1. 17 MAR

    Why Heavy Industrial Work Demands a Different Kind of Robot | Gary Chen & Conley Oster, Raise Robotics

    Gary Chen and Conley Oster are co-founders of Raise Robotics - they build mobile manipulators for construction sites, steel fabrication facilities, and shipyards. Environments where the work is genuinely dangerous, the labor shortage is acute, and the dominant solution being pitched to investors right now - humanoid robots - may be fundamentally the wrong answer. In this episode we cover: What it actually feels like to spend a day on a heavy industrial job siteWhy humanoid form factor is the wrong frame for most of these applicationsThe self-driving car parallel: we didn't solve autonomous driving by putting a robot in a taxiWhy "simple" tasks like drawing a line or drilling a hole are deceptively complexThe tribal knowledge problem - losing the human LLMs built over decades on job sitesWhat a job site looks like in 2030The shipbuilder who got 2 applicants for "welder" and thousands for "robot welding technician"Raise Robotics: https://raiserobotics.ai/ The OPTIM Update covers real-world AI, automation, robotics, and AI Infrastructure for founders, investors, and operators. Subscribe: https://www.optim.vc

    42 min

  2. 6 MAR

    How AI Models for Robotics Are Really Built, Deployed, and Sold | Dr. Asad Tirmizi, Trener Robotics

    Dr. Asad Tirmizi, Co-Founder and CEO of Trener Robotics, breaks down the full lifecycle of AI in industrial robotics. We cover how models are actually built - the training pipelines, the data, and what separates people who've done it from people who've read about it. Then we get into deployment reality - what happens when AI hits a real factory floor. And we close with the part nobody wants to discuss - how do you actually sell this stuff through integrators and OEMs. Asad previously worked at Vicarious (acquired by Google) and ByteDance's robotics program. Trener recently raised a $32M Series A co-led by Engine Ventures and IAG Capital Partners to scale their Acteris platform - a robot-agnostic AI skills platform that works across ABB, Universal Robots, FANUC and others. Learn more about Trener Robotics: https://trener.ai The OPTIM Update covers real-world AI, automation, robotics, and AI Infrastructure for founders, investors, and operators. Subscribe: https://www.optim.vc

    49 min
  • 2 Episodes

About

Deep conversations with the founders, investors, and operators building real-world AI - robotics, automation, and industrial systems. Past the headlines, into how these technologies are really built, deployed, and scaled. Hosted by Bogdan Cristei, venture partner and former systems engineer.

Information

  • Creator
    Bogdan Cristei
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 OPTIM Ventures
  • Show Website
    The OPTIM Update